AN ANALYSIS ON CONFLICTS FACED BY LINDA JACKSON AS THE MAIN CHARACTER IN LAURIE BRIDGES AND PAUL ALEXANDER'S NOVEL “SWAMP WITCH”

Novel is a book that contains of long story in the form of prose which has some important points: (1) it may create a powerful emotional impact on the reader’s mind (2) it can make people hear, feel and see, (3) the language that is used is clear. By reading novel people can gain important knowledge in many kind of fields, such as: politic, social, religion, etc. For example, in Laurie Bridges and Paul Alexander’s novel “Swamp Witch”, while reading the story, the readers are able to know about love, friendship, togetherness, even about superstition and the possibilities of good and evil in the real life. This study focuses on the intrinsic element of literature and tries to analyze the kind of conflicts faced by Linda Jackson as the main character, the effect of those conflicts on her personality and how the conflicts can be solved. The main purpose of this study is to know the conflicts in this novel in order that the readers can learn their personality and behavior toward their environment. This study used descriptive qualitative research design because there was no treatment as it is in experimental research. Moreover, in doing this research, the writer used the objective approach; in this case, the writer did not need to study about the author’s life, background of the work and society but attempted to analyze the work itself, and considered “Swamp Witch” novel as the object of the study. From the result of the analysis, it is found that there were three kinds of conflicts faced by Linda Jackson, namely: social, psychological and physical conflicts. And those conflicts had made Linda as a pessimistic, sensitive, fainthearted and easily offended person. Finally, the social conflicts faced by Linda could be solved by Tubelle’s death, reminding that the conflict existed because of Tubelle’s presence and her magical power. Then, the psychological conflicts could be reduced by Linda’s effort by telling her guilt feeling, fear and confusion to Ron Haines because she considered him as the only one person who could be trusted. And the last, in facing her physical conflicts, besides Linda had to struggle by herself, she was also helped by Ron Haines and Ben Davis, Tubelle’s grandson. Then, these conflicts ended by Tubelle’s death